An Interview with Dan Zanes

When I first found out that Dan Zanes was coming to our neck of fly-over country on his fall tour, I was thrilled. The kids artists we've seen in concert so far have been excellent (Justin Roberts, TMBG, Ralph's World), but a Zanes show, from what I've heard, seems like the supreme experience in live music for families. So, now, a day away from seeing Dan Zanes and Friends live in concert, I am practically vibrating with anticipation.

I had the chance to interview Dan by phone earlier this week. There were so many questions I wanted to ask him about how he selects songs for his albums, how he approaches writing, why he didn't call me when he needed a new accordion player in his band (because I can totally rock out on the accordion -- well, kind of), and what's up with his hair. But most of my questions went in a different direction, into some very interesting territory, I think. And I asked one question at the end of the interview that had me shaking in my shoes, because a person not as kind and wonderful as Dan Zanes might have just hung up on me when hearing it. But he gave an incredibly thoughtful - and surprising - answer.

Since Dan and Friends are in the middle of a major tour, I started our discussion with a few questions about some of their recent performances. Their concert at Carnegie Hall came up first.

"It was like getting married again - people coming from all over the country for a big party," he described. "Everyone in the band had at least a half-dozen family members there. It was like a big party that just happened to be in Carnegie Hall."

He sounded incredibly positive about the current tour. "We're having more fun than we've had in a while," he said. "For some reason it's been really special this fall."

I asked about how they were received in Australia last month.

"The first 10 minutes of the first show, I was thinking we might be in for kind of a long week, because people just sat there watching us," he said. "We're so used to people singing along and dancing and getting right into it. I forgot that people there really didn't know us well yet. They were just observing for a little while. But by the end of the first show, everyone was on their feet....Then, I think word got around, and people loosened up."

Dan mentioned that Australia is just starting to see his Playhouse Disney videos, and went on to explain that television there is quite different than in the U.S. "It seems much more civilized...they're much more limited in their television options," he said. "It sounds like people just don't watch as much TV there as they do here - it's more of an outdoor culture. And Playhouse Disney is a younger channel there, too"

Then I entered some very interesting territory, asking Dan about working with Disney and making the transition from being on his own indie label to working with this big multinational corporation.

"It's a little weird, but it's good because of the people that I deal with at Disney - a woman named Nancy Kanter who runs the channel [Playhouse Disney] and Paula Rosenthal who runs their New York office. We just negotiated to develop a TV show - something I've really wanted to do for the last couple years. I would have dropped out of it months ago if it hadn't been for these two women."

He seemed genuinely excited about this aspect of his work. "It's not where I expected to end up. I'm really much more of a PBS kind of guy, but there's a lot about Disney that I really appreciate and respect," he said.

He went on to explain how his thoughts on television for kids have changed over the years. "When my daughter was born, my first inclination was to throw out the TV...but my wife won the battle on that one - or we kind of compromised. There is a certain tone on certain channels where people are barking at each other and grownups are treated like idiots. And if you're exposed to a lot of that I think it's really unhealthy. But [Playhouse] Disney's not like that. They have a sense of family unity, and the tone is more gentle. There's a lot about them that I like and that I can identify with it. There's a lot about it that's right in line with what I think."

As a parent, this was both fun and reassuring to hear. I shared with Dan that we've felt the same way about Disney, and that we were surprised to find that many of the messages in their shows were in agreement with our own values - not something we expected. And here, I have to add that when interviewing someone you admire, it's very difficult not to turn it into a "let's find all the things we have in common, because the more I have in common with this Great Person, the more of a Great Person that makes me" discussion. Very difficult.

Dan explained that working with Disney was a major change for him from the way things are done with Festival Five, his own label. And again, he credited the people at Disney for making this transition a smooth one. "We're so low to the ground, so quick, and so used to doing things the way we want to," he said. "The corporate world is a lot different than that. But if the people are cool, then the end result can be cool."

Disney is known for high production values, a quality that Dan really seems to appreciate. He discussed high production values in terms of the packaging for his own CDs. "My daughter would get so mad when we would get a CD for us to listen to, and she would take out the book, and there was nothing there for a 3-year-old. Just black and white pages with lyrics. We were thinking 'we can do a lot better than this' just in terms of the packaging."

So enough about Disney. The other thing I was most curious about with Dan was what the kids music scene is like in Brooklyn these days. Seeing so many kids and family artists coming out of Brooklyn, it seems like such a dynamic place. I asked Dan if there was much of a community in Brooklyn among kids artists.

"I think there is....Just to run into people and exchange a few friendly words gives me a feeling that we're all here together," he said.

I asked if he sees much of They Might Be Giants or other artists in the kids music scene.

"We're not having dinners together all the time, but we do see each other and because it's such a little world, we're aware of what everyone is doing. I get the feeling that we're all kind of in tune with each other. I see David Weinstone from Music for Aardvarks - his kids went to school right at the end of my street...and a group called Gilly Galoo, and Astrograss."

I was so glad he mentioned Astrograss. I had just noticed them on Bright Spaces 2 (playing with Dan on "Jump Up") and I was totally intrigued.

"They're such monstrous players," he raved. "They're kind of a newgrass group, or progressive bluegrass. They're just all-around enthusiastic guys. They rang my doorbell the other day just because they were walking by and they wanted to say hi."

I had been wondering if Brooklyn was the kind of community where kids artists run into each other at the grocery store. After hearing Dan's stories and perspectives, it sounded to me like it was.

"Yeah, it's very much like that," he agreed. "I love hanging around with other musicians - we love to make each other laugh....The other thing about it [Brooklyn] that's so exciting, is unlike Manhattan, which has become so expensive...the American dream is still alive in Brooklyn. There are people coming here from all over the world. This is what makes me crazy about our current administration. We need people coming here - their stories their food, their traditions. That's what makes America great."

We talked more about this when I asked about the time Dan spent in Iowa, as part of a visiting artists program sponsored by the University of Iowa. Since I was born and raised in Iowa, I've always thought of it as a really special place. (Again, a bit of the "let's find things we have in common" thing happening.) I asked what his impressions of Iowa were, coming from New York.

"I'm from New Hampshire, so I grew up in a situation that was much more like Iowa than New York, so for me it was really comfortable," he explained. "We were in nursing homes, libraries, schools, Rotary clubs, all of that, so I really got to meet people. I think I was kind of wondering, 'how do people feel about singing along and throwing themselves into it?' I'm always thinking about the old fashioned way, that music is something we make with each other. I'm much less interested in the performance aspect than the communal aspect of it. The more I can be like the Grateful Dead, the better....I learned a lot about how to get people singing along."

And then he shared his views on what's been happening culturally in some of the small towns in Iowa. "The other thing that really opened my eyes was going to towns that were 25 or 30 percent Mexican, where that had happened only in the last 10 or 15 years," he said. "Going from zero to 30 percent in your town, that's an incredible shift. I went to one town that completely embraced the change in the community, and it was so exciting and vibrant, and it felt like the beginning of this great new era. Then I went to this other town that couldn't get with this program at all, and there was such a division. It was difficult to be around it. I can see why it's hard for people, but at the same time, this is America...we're all in it together."

As we were about to wrap up, I tossed out one of my last questions: "What's your favorite Young Fresh Fellows song?"

He laughed. I (very nervously) laughed.

"Did you ever respond to their song 'Beer Money'?" I asked. This is where a less amazingly kind and wonderful person might have hung up on me. For those of you who aren't familiar with "Beer Money," it is a Young Fresh Fellows song that takes aim at Dan's old band, the Del Fuegos, for their musical appearance in a Miller Beer commercial in the early 1980's.

"I think I was just too humiliated at that point," he responded. "We realized we had made a terrible mistake. We thought, this is rock history. And since we did a beer commercial that debuted during Live Aid, our timing couldn't have been worse. Here were all these people gathering together to do something for Africa, and our role in it was to sell beer."

Dan's reaction was not what I expected. I hadn't realized until then that their commercial premiered during Live Aid, and I was surprised (and kind of sad) to hear that he still looks back on it as a "terrible mistake."

He went on to explain, "The climate was a little bit precious at that point, and we were the ones that took a lot of the flack. But it was a good lesson to learn. And the funny thing is that now people are crawling all over each other to have their music placed in TV commercials."

So there it is. We chatted a bit more about his upcoming shows in Michigan, and the current composition of his band. There have been some major changes recently, including the departure of accordion player Cynthia Hopkins, and the arrival of Barbara Brousal's baby (which means she is not touring until after the first of the year). Dan assured me that Charlie Faye, who has been filling in for Barbara, will not disappoint.

I can hardly wait.